


Nature v Nurture

by Palefire73



Series: Loki Origins [37]
Category: Frigga - Fandom, Loki - Fandom, Norse Gods - Fandom
Genre: Foreshadowing, Gen, Magic, links to other stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 06:05:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14826755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palefire73/pseuds/Palefire73
Summary: Loki is upset by the thoughts he is able to hear.Although he has been gifted with the talent by Nature, Frigga is determined to use Nurture to help him to control it. Yet in her kindness, all she does is move Loki onto the path of what he will eventually become.





	Nature v Nurture

**Author's Note:**

> It's a long one, folks, but I couldn't chop it into two because it wouldn't make sense. This one is a play around with the Nature v Nurture idea, because we are surely a product of both?

There are many schools of thought about how we develop as children and become the adults we spend most of our lives as. Our parents – or guardians in some cases – have only a relatively short time in which to help us to understand our world and to have any kind of influence on our beliefs, our tastes and our habits. Yet this can still only contribute a small part of what becomes our whole. If one was to look at a large family for example, it would quickly become apparent that, despite the many physical similarities between the parents, the children, grandparents and others, there would also be distinct behavioural differences. And that is what makes the world so interesting despite the conflict it can cause, for would it not be a little boring if we were all exactly the same?

 

So it was that Tyr and Thor, although showing similar features to both their father and each other physically, were also quite different in their ideas and behaviour. They were both clearly destined to be great warriors in a life comparable to their ancestors, but Tyr was also a youth of very considered action: he was one for looking at the various points of view before commenting or acting, a habit that boded well for his future role as the God of Justice. By contrast, Thor was quick to judge or to act upon something and ask the questions later, something that Odin and Frigga were making efforts to dissuade, albeit with not much success. However, both their sons were still young, with many years or even decades of training ahead of them and there was plenty of time to nurture their talents and shape them into the best version of who they were destined to be.

 

Now we come to a very strong example of _Nature’s_ influence: Loki. Loki was being brought up by the same parents and carers, he was living in the same environment with all the same influences and opportunities, yet the difference in his behaviour, habits and ideas, and those of his brothers was becoming more evident the older they got. Although Tyr enjoyed his studies and was known for turning in long essays on subjects such as the history of warfare and justice in Asgard, Loki might spend days picking the brain of his science tutor about an aspect of a botany lesson that had interested him, or bug Eir about what made skin grow back over a cut. Whereas Thor enjoyed going to the athletic conditioning sessions held every other afternoon, Loki preferred something like chess club or drama. Do we assume that these differences are purely down to nature, though? All the boys were encouraged to follow their individual interests to a large extent.

 

Yet anyone who had lived with and had vested interests in the Royal children would have held up their hand and sworn that there was a definite difference to be seen between Loki and his older brothers, even though those same people would not have been able to define what it was exactly. They would possibly have put it down to him being the youngest or some similar reason. Frigga and Odin had inside knowledge that influenced their opinion of course: Loki had not been born an Asgardian and Frigga knew there was even more to him than that. Perhaps it was that Odin had a lot on his plate as the Protector of the Nine Realms and was not of a mind to pamper to the youngest prince’s emotional needs, or perhaps it was that Frigga was simply more empathetic, but Asgard’s graceful and kind Queen had decided long ago that Loki would need support of a different kind to Tyr and Thor whilst growing up and she intended to be there to provide it. Could this benevolent Goddess use her strength and wisdom as a force for _Nurture_?

 

One area that Loki was struggling with in particular was his sensitivity towards the thoughts of others. He had confided in Frigga on more than one occasion about how he could hear voices in a quiet room or how he would suddenly be overcome with sadness or happiness that was not his own and that he did not like it. Frigga knew that he must have the ability to tune into the energies given off by other people ad she did not envy him: many who did not have this ‘gift’ were envious and suspicious of it because they felt it gave the ‘mind-reader’ an advantage. Frigga knew from experience that it was not always a desirable talent; indeed it could be a burden. There was only one thing for it: she had to help him learn to control the influx of thoughts and impressions constantly given off by everyone around him so that he could perhaps gain some reprieve. With this in mind, she decided that the perfect place to start off would be in her private study situated high up in one of the lofty towers of Asgard where it enjoyed solace as well as amazing views of the realm. It was a room she had spent many hours in over the centuries, a retreat of sorts for when she felt the need to be away from the hustle and bustle of the life she led as the Queen of the All Father. What had once been an abandoned storage room just underneath the conical roof of the tower was now a circular haven with a central seating area, shelves filled with books and interesting objects, and walls adorned with various works of art. It was, perhaps, her favourite place if one discounted her gardens.

 

She chose a dull morning to take him up there the first time. There was not much on with regard to Royal duties and the older children, such as Thor, had written tests they were to take to show their understanding of the learning they had done over the last few weeks. It was not nice enough to go out for a walk with Loki to continue his lessons in herb lore, so she instructed Fulla to get the young Prince dressed and breakfasted and then to bring him up to the high tower room.

 

A knock at the door caught her attention and she said “Enter.” It swung open and her son came uncertainly into the room, looking around in wonder at all the things displayed there; it was amazing for such a young boy to see. “This is my favourite get away,” said Frigga as she held out her hand in greeting **.** Loki looked at it for a moment – those elegant fingers were held out towards him in the same way they frequently were: as an offer of comfort and friendship. As he tentatively walked forwards and gave his mother his hand, she gave him a kindly smile and said, “Come, sit with me Loki. I have brought you here to teach you something you will find very useful.” Loki allowed himself to be led to the sofa where he perched on the edge of one of the large comfortable seat cushions and watched as Fulla withdrew from the room and closed the door behind her. All alone now with his mother, he waited quietly as she prepared him a drink in a fine porcelain cup. It was white with a pretty picture of garden roses on the side and with gilding all around the brim. It made a gentle chink as Frigga placed it on a saucer and then brought it to him.

 

“This is Midgardian Tea, Loki. It is a delicately flavoured one called ‘Earl Grey’ and you can have it as it is, or with a little bit of milk. Go on, try it.” Loki carefully picked the cup up and sipped at the amber coloured tea, which was hot but not too hot. It had a strange flavour reminiscent of citrus fruits, but only a hint which was a pleasing combination with the base tea flavours. He glanced at his mother and smiled, “It is quite nice, but…”

“Here.” Frigga reached for a small white jug and allowed the tiniest splash of milk to fall into his cup. She stirred it with a silver teaspoon, “try it now.”

He sipped again and now the flavour had changed to a slightly more rounded and sweeter taste.

“How is that?” Frigga asked.

“I like it more like that,” replied Loki and he sipped some more, feeling the warm liquid travelling all the way down to his tummy. He glanced around the room at the various paintings on the walls and out of the small windows: _why had he never been shown this room before?_

“Very good. I like it that way too!” Frigga poured herself a cup of tea in an identical cup and sat back a little way along the sofa so that she could look at Loki properly. “Now, why are you here this morning? Is that what you are wondering?”

Loki nodded, “Yes, Móðir. Am I in trouble for something?”

Frigga laughed softly, “No, of course not! You are here because I want to help you. I want to show you how to stop all of those other peoples’ thoughts crowding your mind.”

At her kind words, Loki felt his face become hot and sudden emotion welled up in him, with tears blurring his vision. He bent his head as he tried to fight it back, but memories of nasty phrases and scary emotions flooded his mind and he found his hands tightening on the porcelain. He felt the cushion beside him sink slightly as the cup and saucer were gently taken from him and before he knew it, he found himself being drawn into a warm embrace. Frigga stroked his hair and kissed the top of his head as he leaned against her, accepting the strength his mother’s love gave him.

“Do not worry Loki, I will help you.”

 

After a few minutes and the use of a soft green handkerchief, Loki felt better and he gratefully accepted his somewhat cooler cup of tea, which he quickly drank down. All the while Frigga watched him with love in her heart: this was going to take a long time, but it would be something he would need as a child of the House of Odin and she was determined to help him to develop it into a skill.

“Feeling better?” She asked.

“Yes Móðir, thank you.” Loki looked around the room once more, “how long have you had this place?”

“Oh… many centuries, my son.” Frigga rose and picked up a tiny clay pot from one of the shelves. “This is where I come when it is not nice enough to go to my garden, or when I simply crave a quiet space. I have been collecting these artefacts for many long years and they all have wondrous properties or special meaning to me. She placed the pot back and indicated the pictures hanging on the walls, “These are from all over the Nine. Many of the mortal realms assume that particular art forms are only found on their own worlds, but they would be surprised to learn that most of them are common across the reach of Yggdrasil and beyond.”

 

As she spoke, Loki looked around the room and realised the extent of the collection of strange and beautiful objects that decorated the shelving. It encircled the central seating area, which itself was formed out of curved sofas arranged in a way that made them almost a complete circle, and in the very centre was a round coffee table. The shelving did not have backs on, so one could see right through to where a three foot wide floor led all the way around the room. There were about five gaps in the shelving that one could walk through as well as the door which opened back out to the top of the stairs that led up here; these gaps allowed access to the outer section of the room where the wall of the tower was also lined with shelves along the bottom and had an array of pictures hanging on the spaces between the half dozen or so small windows. His young mind could hardly take it all in, but he reached out and took hold of a tiny crystal vial that contained a vivid blue powder.

 

“Ahhh…” mused Frigga, “what made you pick that up my son?”

Loki quickly placed the vial back on the shelf, looking as if he was about to burst into tears, “I am sorry Móðir, I did not mean to touch!”

“Oh, Loki!” Smiled Frigga, as she came over and picked up the vial. She sat back on the sofa and beckoned Loki to mover over and sit beside her, “I would have told you that there was to be no touching when you arrived if that was the case. I have hidden anything that you could hurt yourself with!”

Loki’s eyes grew wide at her words and she laughed again, “Oh, my son! You are so sweet. Let me tell you what this is and you will understand why I asked you what made you curious about this object in particular.” Loki settled down beside her and she placed it carefully in his small hand. He turned it around and watched as the blue powder tumbled around inside the delicate bottle, wondering what it was. It shone and glittered as if it was made up of millions of miniature crystals and he found it to be quite hypnotic.

“It is powdered Dragon Scale, Loki.”

“Dragon Scale?”

“Yes and it is from a distant world, far outside the Nine. It is a world of many races including Dragons, creatures which are a little like the Rock Serpents we have here only they are the children of the Gods there and are powerful, with many magical abilities. This powder is a ground up scale from the hide of perhaps one of the oldest Chromatic Blue Dragons of Krynn…”

“Who is it?”

“She was called Nadir when she gifted this to me, but I do not know if she still lives. Times are turbulent in that universe.”

“She gave it to you? Why would she pluck one of her own scales?” Loki struggled to understand.

“We met purely by accident. It was a long time ago and I enjoyed tagging along with your father when he went travelling all over the place.” Frigga looked off into the distance as she recalled the encounter. “It was possibly one of the scariest moments of my life, but I helped her with something and she gave me this in return. It seemed we shared our intuition about the future and she told me I would need it one day. I think that day is today.” Frigga took the vial back and opened it. She tipped the tiniest amount of the blue powder into the palm of her hand and placed the vial carefully on the table out of arm’s reach before turning to Loki who was looking at her wondering what she was doing. Holding the elegant fingers of her other hand over the powder, she concentrated and golden sparkles of Seidr began to emanate from them and mingle with the tiny crystalline blue particles. The two colours mixed together slowly but surely, eventually forming a small cloud of the purest emerald green, whereupon Frigga suddenly looked straight at Loki, who flinched a little.

 

His mother’s eyes were so strange and frightening to see, yet also incredibly compelling and impossible to look away from. The pattern in her irises had changed into an almost reptilian form and were of a golden hue, completely different from her usual colour.

“I will teach you tricks for your mind, Loki, but this will enhance that learning. Whilst mind shielding training is compulsory for all members of the Royal Family, I believe that you require a more powerful defence because of your special abilities.” She rubbed her hands together, and her fingertips became coated in the emerald powder which was shimmering in the sunlight coming in through the windows of the tower room. Lifting her hands to position them on each side of Loki’s face, Frigga asked, “Do you trust me, my son?”

Unable to speak, Loki nodded his reply, albeit in an uncertain manner.

“I will not harm you, Loki. I promise I would never do anything to hurt you. This is to help you to control the voices in a more sophisticated way than by will alone.” Loki closed his eyes as her gentle fingers brushed his temples and went back into his brown hair, leaving a faint streak of green in their path. Yet it faded almost instantly as the powder sank into the skin of his scalp, tingling his nerves and making him giggle. As he opened his eyes and looked at his mother, he saw her mouthing silent words and the sensation quickly disappeared, leaving him feeling perfectly normal again, as if nothing had happened. Then Frigga quickly scooped up the vial and put the stopper back on, before secreting it in a pocket of her robe.

 

“How do you feel?” She asked, and Loki saw that the strange pattern in her eyes had gone.

“I feel… well, nothing, really!” The little boy was a little amused by all of this, but he wanted to know if it had worked. “Say something to me in your head!” he blurted, “I want to see if I can hear you.”

 

“ _Oh, you will hear me, my son. I can talk to you like this; they are not simply wayward thoughts!”_

 

Hearing his mother’s voice loud and clear inside his head, Loki felt let down. The way his mother had built up the amazing tale of a dragon giving some of its magic to her and then seeing her use her Seidr on it had made him feel like something incredible was going to happen, but he could feel nothing and he had still been able to hear her. Frigga saw his disappointment and smiled.

 

“You cannot hear my general thoughts, though? No one’s mind is completely silent, surely?”

“I do not recall ever hearing your general thoughts, Móðir! How can I tell if anything has happened? What is meant to have happened?”

“Listen Loki and I will tell you. Anyone can be taught to protect their thoughts to a certain extent, but it is very difficult if that person has no natural talent and it takes many, many months, even years to get even the minimum of protection. Because of this we often use amulets to help out and this will possibly be the case with Thor unless I can tap into another power within him and utilise it. Anyway, back to you. You have powers Loki. You constantly surprise me – and have done so since the day I first set eyes upon you! It is because of this that I decided to use the power of the Chromatic Blue on you. Those Dragons are incredibly powerful and are able to wield magic in all manner of ways, which is why I only used a very tiny amount of the scale powder. I didn’t want it to impart any unwanted traits to you! What it has done is enhance your mental strength Loki, so that you can actively filter out those thoughts you simply do not want to hear. At first it will possibly be all or nothing, but with time you will grow more proficient and be able to target what you do or do not want to listen to. In addition, it will help you to make your own thoughts virtually impenetrable, even to the most powerful of mind readers.”

 

Frigga smiled and stroked his cheek as he processed all this information, then got up to go over to another shelf, upon which was a small set of drawers. They were shallow wooden drawers in the style of a cataloguing system and she opened the very top one after unlocking it with a tiny key she retrieved from yet another pocket of her robe. Loki’s interest was instantly piqued and he craned his neck to see what she had taken from the drawer as she returned to her seat.

 

“Time for a test.” She said, keeping both hands in fists so that he could not tell which one had something in.

“A test?” he asked, excitedly, so something must have happened when she put the scale powder on him!

“Yes. I want you to concentrate. When I open my hands, simply point to the one which has something in it. Do you understand?”

“Yes Móðir!” said Loki, jiggling slightly with anticipation. _This should be easy!_

 

Frigga slowly opened both of her hands and Loki sat back, puzzled: neither palm held anything!

 

“Which one, Loki?” Asked Frigga and he shook his head.

“There is nothing there, Móðir!”

“Oh, but there is… I am simply telling your mind that there is nothing to be seen.”

Loki reached out, but Frigga closed her fists, “No… no touching! Simply tell me which hand has something in it!” She opened them again and Loki looked at them, but again he could not see anything. After a few moments of leaning this way and that, he sighed, “I cannot see anything.”

“You are concentrating on the wrong thing, Loki. You are using your eyes to try to see something in my hand. What you should be doing is trying to stop me tricking you into thinking there is nothing there.”  
“But I cannot hear any words in my head from you to say there is nothing there!” The young Prince looked confused and Frigga smiled; the first lessons in trickery and protection of the mind were always the most difficult. The pupil had to be shown ways to unlearn everything they had grown up with and had been told regarding how they perceived things. She nodded patiently.

“Not all words are audible, Loki. The types of telepath you might encounter in your life will be powerful in ways you cannot yet imagine. You need to try to think differently, but I know it is hard. Try again, my son, but stop relying so much on your eyes. Try closing them for a minute or so and then look again.”

Loki sighed again. This game was no fun! Yet he wanted to learn and so he closed his blue eyes and concentrated as hard as he could, trying to convince himself that there really was something in one of his mother’s hands. Then something strange happened: he heard the faintest of sibilant whispers somewhere in the furthest reaches of his mind.

 

_Nothing there… empty hands… lies…_

 

His eyes snapped open in surprise and as they did, he glimpsed a shadow of an object in his mother’s left hand, yet as soon as he looked properly, it disappeared! He closed his eyes again and now he concentrated on having caught just the slightest image before opening his eyes again.

 

It was there!

 

There was a tiny black sphere in the centre of her palm and he pointed at it as it began to fade away again. “There! It is in your left hand. It is a black stone!” He looked up at her and his heart soared as she smiled and nodded.

 

“You found it, Loki and now it is yours to keep.”

 

In his excitement Loki took the small black stone, which was actually an intensely dark green had tiny gold stars swimming around inside it. Recognising it as a smaller version of the stone in the sundial he had cleaned for his father well over a year ago. “Oh, an Altseende Øyet!” he exclaimed, “May I really keep it?”

“Of course Loki, just make sure you look after it, you know what it can do.”

“Yes, Móðir. Have you managed to find the Motherstone yet?”

“No, Loki, but I will keep looking for it must be somewhere! Now, I think that is enough for today. Let us go to see if Tyr and Thor have finished their tests and get some lunch together.”

 

Pocketing the Altseende, Loki took his mother’s hand as she led him out of the tower room; the lesson in mind shielding already forgotten as he anticipated what he might be eating with his brothers for lunch. Yet what he had experienced that morning was the first step along the road he would take to becoming a master at the arts of mind manipulation, both from the skills his mother would teach him and in the use of the tools he would seek out in the Nine that she would tell him about. In her desire to help him gain peace from others’ thoughts, Frigga had inadvertently germinated the seed within him that would lead to his most infamous title: The God of Lies.

**Author's Note:**

> So, did you spot this much earlier use of Dragonscale powder in my Lokiverse? It is used again in "State's of a God's Heart" / "In Another Time, Another Place" in Aida's storylines. I've also introduced the point at which Loki first drinks Midgardian Earl Grey with a splash of milk out of that favourite cup he so favours in his adult life. Then we have a reference to art collecting, which I explore in Loki's life in "Artistic Doorways" and "The Curator" and of course the ever present Altseende Oyet, which is in virtually every series I've ever written! 
> 
> I hope that by embedding these "head canons" of mine into different series and stories enriches the Lokiverse I have spent almost four years creating, and makes your reading experience a bit more interesting. Thanks for checking in!  
> Laterz, #Loki fans  
> Palefire73  
> x


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